At a Glance

A top science advisor to former President Lyndon B. Johnson warned that expected increases in carbon dioxide emissions would have damaging effects on the environment.The report comes soon after an internal Exxon Mobil film was released detailing decades-old knowledge of the link between fossil fuels and climate change.

Utility companies have known as far back as 1968 that emissions from fossil fuels were warming the planet yet made a concerted effort to squash the information from the public and investors, a new report says.

According to the , dozens of internal documents discovered from the archives of utility industry associations show that the industry funded research into climate change early onbut later put a stop to any such effort, perpetrating what the watchdog groupcalls an "ongoing deception on climate change."

The documents reveal that in 1968, a top science advisor to former President Lyndon B. Johnson proffered a warning to utility executives that expected increases in carbon dioxide emissions would have damaging effects on the environment.

“Carbon dioxide is not toxic, but it is the chief heat-absorbing component of the atmosphere,” Donald F.Hornig said at the 1968 annual convention of the Edison Electric Institute, according to the trade group’s newsletter from that year. “Such a change in the carbon dioxide level might, therefore, produce major consequences on the climate ― possibly even triggering catastrophic effects such as have occurred from time to time in the past.”

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The latest discovery comes two years after and the revealed a similar deception by Exxon Mobil, which, according to documents, indicate the oil giant knew about the impending climate crisis by the late 1970s. In an attempt to protect its financial interests, Exxon Mobile covered up the evidence. That discovery led state attorneys general to investigateExxon Mobil for allegedly misleading its investors about the risks of carbon-induced climate change.

Similarly, Shell was called out earlier this year when an internal corporate film from was .

The film, called "Climate of Concern," explained how its own product could lead to extremeweather, floods, famine and "greenhouse refugees." It noted thatclimate change was "endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists" and would change "at a faster rate than at any time since theend of the ice age."

The film offered a pre-emptive look a future world impacted by climate change, which scientists today say is now inevitable.

“Tropical islands barely afloat even now, first made inhabitable, and then obliterated beneath the waves … coastal lowlands everywhere suffering pollution of precious groundwater, on which so much farming and so many cities depend,” the film’s narrator says. “In a crowded world subject to such adverse shifts of climate, who would take care of such greenhouse refugees?”

According to the latest report, utilities seemto have followed a similar path of deception as the oil giants beginning as early as 1968.

In the 1970s, utilities like the Edison Electric Institute partnered withElectric Power Research Institute, a non-profit science and technology organization that conducts research on the electric industry for the public benefit, insponsoring climate research that studiedthe increasing amounts of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere and what that might mean for global temperatures and the risk of melting polar caps.

In a report released in April 1988, the two organizations concluded that “climate changes possible over the next 30 years may significantly affect the electric utility industry.”

Instead of heeding the warnings, the industry backedthe Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that included American Electric Power, Consumers Power Company, Edison Electric Institute, Pacific Gas & Electric Companyand Southern Company, which worked to "aggressively" squash any governmental efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Southern Company and EEI, which lobbies on behalf of investor-owned utilities, also headedthead campaign,which astheory(notfact),” the report notes.

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In the 50 years since the industry first became aware of the risks associated with the burning of fossil fuels, companies continued to build numerous coal and gas-fired power plants. Because of their investments, 65 percent of their power continues to be generated from those plants in 2017, the report notes.

"Electric utilities knew long ago about the risks of delaying action to address climate change, but continued to invest in new coal generation — the largest emitter of CO2 — until around 2013," the authors note. "The industry continues to repeat the mistakes of the past, today evidenced by a rush to build new natural gas power plants and pipelines that put our climate at further risk."

The authors concede that total annual CO2 emissions from the electric utility industry have declined from the peak in the mid-2000s, thanks to an investment in cleaner energy sources and a reduction in coal-burning plants, but also note that COS emissions still remain higher than in 1988 and 1989. This is largely due to "utility-backed efforts in the years since to deny the causes and risks of climate changes and block legal limits on CO2 emissions from power plants."

Schuyler Baehman, media contact forAtlanta-based Southern Company, told weather.com that the company is "meeting or exceeding all environmental regulations across our system," noting that the system's total annual green house gas emissions in 2016 were approximately 27 percent lower than 2005 levels, without federal mandates.

"Climate change is a challenging issue for our world and our nation," he said. "Southern Company is committed to a leadership role in finding solutions that make technological, environmental and economic sense. The focus of this effort must be on developing and deploying technologies that reduce GHGs while making sure that energy remains reliable and affordable."

Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, told weather.com that the report may lead to the same type of scrutiny and investigations the oil giantsare now undergoing.

"This report invites the plaintiffs' lawyers and state attorneys general who have been going after oil companies to use the same theories against the electric utilities — at least those that rely mostly on coal," Gerrard said. "The utilities that are heavily into hydro or nuclear do not have this vulnerability, and those that chiefly use natural gas are in between."

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